There was an attack on a church in Italy according to this. Not a suicide bomber, but still… Very disturbing. I’ll have to see how it pans out.

Powerline has taken a crack at why Bush’s policy towards Iran has changed, and I have to agree with him. He says that Bush is letting the EU and the UN do the diplomacy thing on Iran and has a fallback plan. I concur, but believe it to be incomplete: I believe that Bush has thought from the beginning that Iran was going to misbehave, but he changed the policy to warm to Europe a bit more. Get closer to Europe, while proving their strategy wrong, what could be better, eh? Now, many would say: “Bush? Europe? Bush hates Europe, Europe hates Bush, they don’t want to work together except for the cameras…” Politics is politics. While our “allies” in Europe aren’t as important as the UN and other organizations would like us to believe, they are worth a lot more than the “Fuque France” bumper-stickers. There are somethings that we do need them for; we just need to pick and choose wisely.

There has been lots of news happening lately, especially out of Pakistan. Like here, where Pakistani clerics have issued a decree stating that the use of heroin is un-islamic (a decree is also called a fatwa). This was, oddly enough, issued near Afganistan where there is problems with opium production. Personally, I think that heroin is “un” everything. Unhealthy, un-frugal, and uncool.

Other, more important news out of Pakistan comes at a time where nuclear proliferation is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. As stated here, Pakistan has agreed to hand over its uranium-enriching components over the UN, which could lead to insight into Iran’s nuclear program (since the former Pakistani head sold Iran similiar “centrifuge” parts.

As posted by Gateway Pundit, there is yet another Pakistani news story of interest. Apparently, Abdullah Mehsud died of gunshot wounds. Abdullah was one-legged militant, kidnapper of Chinese engineers, and former Guantanamo inmate (my question is, why’d they let him out?)

How awesome is that? Right on!

I’m going to drag this link out of obscurity. Notice the date is April 2003, and we’re going into March 2005. Almost two years from now, and this is right on.

Damascus and Beirut have obviously popped up in the news lately, when the Prime Minister resigned, then two weeks later was nominated by the president again. Hizb’allah and anti-syrians have taken to the streets. The rose revolution? It’s certainly a heady parfum, this revolution. Orange, rose, yellow, maybe blue?

Something incredible is happening in the Middle East, and even if Lebanon doesn’t pull through, the incidents will not be forgotten. With Arab media skyrocketing, these things are being seen, heard, and discussed. And the fragrance of revolution doesn’t dissapate easily. Iran proved that.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to this process is for Israel to stumble all over itself, like here.
Many muslims believe that Israel is “Zionist”, and what Israel encourages is bad for them. Though I believe this view to be incorrect, it is still deeply rooted, and Sharon’s group should take note to either not comment on progress outside of the country, or even slightly frown on it publiclly.

Hizb’allah’s decision to support Syria, I think, will lead to a split in the party (hopefully), and a civil war. Austin Bay concurs.

UPDATE: According to this, Syria has begun to pull troops out. That’s good. Leaving intelligence agents behind? Bad, very bad. It’s one thing to have spies from a neighboring country. But officially acknowledged intelligence? Lebanon won’t be independent unless it has full controll over its own intelligence networks. Ironically, I’m sensing that if everything with Lebanon does pull through, that intelligence and deeply rooted Syrian intrigue will be the last battle to fight– a most stubborn and noxious weed. It was like in Intrepid’s Last Case, a country that pulls another country’s intelligence strings controls that country. Vichy France is one example, so are the old Soviet satellite countries.